Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Does Google Data Studio Sample Google Analytics Data?

Google Data Studio, a free online data visualization tool, connects to a multitude of data sources including Google Analytics.

If you have a very high volume of Google Analytics data, and use Data Studio for reporting and analysis, it’s possible you may experience data discrepancies between what the Google Analytics interface displays and what you see in Data Studio.…

The post Does Google Data Studio Sample Google Analytics Data? appeared first on Seer Interactive.



Monday, April 22, 2019

What’s New in Facebook’s Redesigned Ads Manager

In an effort to make advertising easier for advertisers, Facebook is rolling out a new redesigned Ads Manager, including a handful of shiny new features! ✨

Keep in mind that the old Ads Manager will be available until May 1st, but we recommend using the redesigned UI as much as possible to get acclimated to the new interface, and to take advantage of the new features.…

The post What’s New in Facebook’s Redesigned Ads Manager appeared first on Seer Interactive.



How to Leverage Google’s Smart Bidding

It’s no secret that the digital marketing industry can and does change rapidly. As digital marketers, we need to be aware of it, embrace it, and learn how to thrive in this ever-changing landscape to stay competitive for the success of our audience.

The post How to Leverage Google’s Smart Bidding appeared first on Seer Interactive.



Thursday, April 18, 2019

HTTP vs. HTTPS: How Your Decision Impacts SEO

There’s a website attack every 39 seconds, affecting one in three Americans every year.

But if you’re not protecting the information being passed through your website, you could be skyrocketing the chances of a cyber attack happening to your site, your website dropping down Google’s ranks—and sacrificing your customers’ data.

(Which, as you’ve probably guessed, is a huge GDPR issue.)

Preventing that security catastrophe starts with learning the difference between HTTP and HTTPS: A type of website certification that impacts how a website collects, stores and uses visitor data.

In this guide, we’re sharing the answer, and listing how you can use security certificates and encrypted connections to boost your SEO.

What is HTTP?

Simply put, HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is what makes the internet work.

A variation of the protocol is needed to access any website—hence why website URLs usually start with “http://www…”—and works by sending a command to a website server to fetch the webpage your URL corresponds to.

What is HTTPS?

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) works in the same way as standard HTTP.

The only difference? All of the data sent through a webpage using HTTPS has an additional layer of security. This is called a Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, and protects any third-parties from eavesdropping on any type of data being passed through the secure website.

HTTPS gives websites extra protection because the data being submitted to and from the server is encrypted—meaning nobody has the ability to steal, hack or view private data.

Plus, data being passed through HTTPS sites can’t be changed or corrupted.

You can check whether your website has HTTPS protection by viewing the URL in your browser. If there’s a green padlock before your domain name, your site is secure:

HTTPS Example

(Your customers check this, too: 28% of internet users look for the green address bar.)

In order to make your website run on HTTPS, you’ll need a Security Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. This certificate, originally developed by Netscape, is what encrypts the site’s data and proves to website visitors that you’re a secure website.

SSL as a Google ranking factor

WhyNoHTTPS found many of the top 100 websites still don’t load securely—including Baidu, ESPN, and MyShopify.

Does that make HTTPS completely irrelevant for SEO?

Not necessarily. In fact, those websites are an anomaly.

Google’s team have expressed the need for HTTPS time and time again. So much so, they’ve released an algorithm update based around it—causing sites without HTTPS security to struggle on their quest to rank highly in the SERPs.

Google’s statement read:

“Over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We’ve seen positive results, so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal. For now it’s only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content — while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.”

It seems they’re taking their own advice. Over 90% of sites owned by Google—including Google News, YouTube, and content promoted through their Google Ads network—send encrypted traffic:

encrypted traffic

…But Google have said they’re working hard to make this figure closer to 100%.

4 Key SEO Benefits of Using HTTPS

These days, there’s more to SEO than HTTPS certificates.

It’s unlikely that a switch from HTTP to HTTPS will skyrocket your rankings to page one. It takes an entire strategy—including on-page SEO, acquiring backlinks, and creating SEO content —to see SEO success.

However, there’s no doubting that making the switch has SEO benefits. Those include:

1. It Gives Better User Experience

It’ll come as no surprise to hear that user experience (UX) is a huge part of SEO.

If people are landing on your website through organic search and you’re greeting them with flashing text, bouncing icons and countless pop-up ads, they aren’t going to stick around. Chances are, they’ll be mad that Google pointed them there.

Google don’t want that reputation, which is why UX forms a huge part of SEO strategies.

Unsecure sites without a HTTPS certificate don’t fit the “high-quality, trustworthy and reliable” criteria that Google set for sites to achieve high rankings.

In fact, Google are so against insecure sites that a recent Chrome latest update now tells users when they’re visiting a site without a HTTPS certificate, labelling the unencrypted website as “Not Secure”:

Not Secure

Source

Seeing that warning sign would give you a fright, right?

You’d think twice about continuing to the website after knowing your data is at-risk, which isn’t going to lead to great user experience—nor high rankings.

2. Secure Websites Can Increase Dwell Time

Dwell time is an important factor for SEO. It’s determined by the amount of time a searcher spends on your website before clicking back to the SERPs, which tells Google how accurate your result was for their query.

Websites without HTTPS could be sabotaging their own dwell time.

The content you’re sharing could be the perfect fit for your searcher. But if they’re being faced with an ugly “Not Secure” message, you won’t have the chance to show them your awesome content.

They’ll simply head back to their SERPs, and contribute to a low dwell time.

Google’s spiders will then view your site as low-quality, or totally irrelevant to that search term, and your URL will drop down the ranks—even if your content is top-notch.

3. Sites with HTTPS Load Faster

When you click a link and land on a website, how long do you wait for the content to load before your patience runs out?

Research by Incapsula found that 55% of people are willing to wait a maximum of five seconds. Combine that with the 7% of people who expect a page to load immediately, and you’ll see why site speed is a critical ranking factor.

(Remember: Google want to point searchers in the direction of sites that are fast, reliable, and trustworthy.)

There’s such a huge importance on site speed that Google rolled out a “speed update”, impacting how mobile SERPs would be produced. Their announcement said:

“People want to be able to find answers to their questions as fast as possible — studies show that people really care about the speed of a page. Although speed has been used in ranking for some time, that signal was focused on desktop searches. Today we’re announcing that starting in July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches.”

Using HTTPS gives you an SEO advantage because websites using HTTP are 824% slower than HTTPS:

HTTPS Loading Speed

Granted, you can use techniques like compressing files, optimizing images, or reducing redirects to boost your website speed.

But using HTTPS is a quick win that could see huge returns from one change.

4. HTTPS Leads to Accurate SEO Reporting

You’ll need to regularly check-in and audit your SEO results to find out what’s helping your rankings, what isn’t, and tweak your strategy accordingly.

That’s the tried-and-tested process of any marketing campaign, right?

It’s not an easy task though; SEO is notoriously difficult to report on. But switching to HTTPS can help.

That’s because referral information is stripped when a site isn’t secure. Traffic sources aren’t named on sites with HTTP, meaning you’ll see a bunch of visitors who’ve come from “direct” source—when in reality, they’ve probably been referred from social media, organic search, or paid ads.

Secure websites using HTTPS, on the other hand, protect (and show) this referral information in your analytics dashboard. You’ll be able to clearly pinpoint the best sources of traffic to your website, making reporting more accurate.

Referral Traffic

You can therefore tweak your SEO strategy based on reliable referral traffic information.

How to Migrate to HTTPS Without Losing Your Traffic

Are you ready to take advantage of the SEO benefits that HTTPS provides?

Unfortunately, migrating from HTTP to HTTPS isn’t as simple as contacting your website host to change your URL. The switch means the links you’ve built to your old domain are no longer working—hence why many site owners worry about losing their organic traffic during the migration.

Here’s how you can make the switch without that happening.

1. Install an SSL certificate

Ready to start protecting the data being passed through your website, and experience the SEO benefits of HTTPS?

You’ll need to install an SSL certificate.

Platforms such as WP Engine have SSL certificates available as add-ons if you’re already using them for your website hosting. You might need to pay extra for this, but don’t treat SSL certificates as an unnecessary expense that you can avoid.

Google are actively rewarding secure websites with higher rankings, and 85% of internet users avoid shopping on unsecure websites—meaning the SEO benefits you’ll get in return will outweigh (small) cost of installation.

Alternatively, you could also use a free service like:

Once you’ve got the SSL certificate for your domain, you’ll need to install it on your website.

You can either use a WordPress plugin like Really Simple SSL to do this (which will automatically detect your new SSL certificate), or ask your hosting provider to activate the certificate on your website.

Really Simple SSL

Once you’ve enabled the SSL certificate for your domain, it’s time to set the HTTPS version as the default URL for your website.

Sign into your WordPress dashboard, click Settings, and make sure your WordPress and Site URL include the HTTPS prefix:

Wordpress URL Settings

(The Really Simple SSL plugin might do this for you automatically, but it’s worth double-checking.)

2. Automatically redirect HTTP to HTTPS

Your old HTTP URL is no longer in use, but people still might land on the unsecure version. So, as soon as you’ve changed your default URL, you’ll need to automatically 301 redirect people landing on the old URL to the new one.

For example: If someone visits http://gotchseo.com, a redirect would automatically send them to the secure version at https://gotchseo.com.

The hosting provider you’re using will likely make this redirect once they’ve installed your SSL certificate. But if you’re installing SSL manually, follow this guide to redirect HTTP to HTTPS, depending on your server.

3. Add the new URL to Search Console

You probably already know that Google Search Console is the primary way Google will communicate with you about your website. Not only that, but it contains tons of valuable data that SEOs can use to understand (and improve) their rankings.

That’s why when you’re migrating to HTTPS, you’ll need to add the new URL to Google Search Console as a new “property”:

Google Search Console

When you get to this stage, take special care to include the URL exactly as you see it in your web browser—including the https://www. prefix.

You’ll then see two properties in your Google Search Console account: The HTTP and HTTPS versions of your website.

(Bare in mind it might take a while for Google to crawl the new version, but from now on, your website SEO data will be found in the HTTPS account.)

4. Find and replace external backlinks

You’ve automatically redirected your website from HTTP to HTTPS, and Google has started to crawl the new version of your website.

What happens next?

The answer lies within backlinks: Arguably the most important factor of any SEO strategy, because external links prove to Google that your website is trustworthy.

…But the backlinks you’ve previously built point to the unsecure version of your domain. And even if you’ve redirected your old URL to the new HTTPS domain, you’ll still need to check (and replace) external backlinks pointing to the HTTP version.

Use a tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush to audit your backlink profile:

Link Profile

For every link you find on an external website, check to see whether you’re automatically redirected from the HTTP to HTTPS version of your website. If you’re not, don’t panic.

Simply install the Redirection plugin for WordPress and create the link yourself.

Redirect Plugin for WordPress

Redirecting these backlinks makes sure you’re not losing any link juice.

Since the backlink leads people to the secure version of your website instead of the unsecure HTTP version (or worse, a 404 error page), Google will crawl the backlinks—and take them into consideration when determining your rankings.

5. Scan for crawl errors

Now you’ve checked that your site’s external backlinks are in check, let’s confirm you’re not losing any SEO value with the internal links littered around your website.

Sign into your Google Search Console account and head to the Coverage report.

Here, you’ll find broken internal links that Google doesn’t recognize, and that you’ll need to redirect to the secure page:

Crawl Errors

Redirect broken internal links to the same page on the HTTPS version of your website.

This works similar to external links in the fact that Google can now crawl your site, and understand what it should rank for, without dead ends blocking their tracks.

Final Thoughts

Are you convinced to make the switch from HTTP to HTTPS?

Follow this guide and you’ll make the migration easy—without losing your organic traffic in the process.

Not only are you protecting your blog, business or entire website from a website attack, but installing SSL certificates and encrypting data is bound to support your SEO strategy.



How to Sell $470,998 Worth of Backlinks

Wondering how to sell more stuff online?

Perfect because I’m going to show you how I sold $470,998 worth of backlinks and acquired 507 customers.

Sales Revenue

Let’s jump right in.

12 Easy Ways to Sell More Stuff Online

1. Position Your Service Differently

Back in 2016, there was still a lot of fear and negativity around the concept of “guest posting” because of Matt Cutts.

Guest posting is dead

That’s why I knew I had to position my service differently. Plus, there were already tons of guest posting services.

So I decided to call my service a “Blogger Outreach Service”.

positioning

I didn’t magically come up with this idea either. I simply did some keyword research and found it. More on this in a second.

2. Map Out an SEO-Focused Content Marketing Funnel

Understanding and executing a proper content marketing funnel is the key to driving sales online.

Here’s what a traditional content marketing funnel looks like:

Content Marketing Funnel

The key difference that I focus on is to create SEO-driven content at the top of the funnel. In other words, I create keyword-targeted content.

Create ToFu Content

I’m a strong believer of the concept of “results in advance”. I learned it from Frank Kern and it’s extremely (yet powerful).

Here’s how it works:
  • You show a prospect how to achieve a result (so they can get results in advance)
  • You then offer a product or service that helps them achieve that result easier, faster, etc.

It’s that simple.

That’s the exact approach I used on my Gotch SEO blog.

I created content targeting informational keywords like “backlinks“, “anchor text“, “PBNs“, and “buy backlinks“.

Then within the content and at the end, I would pitch my blogger outreach service.

Create MoFu Content

If I were to restart this service today, I would have created more middle of the funnel content like webinars or lead magnets.

The only MoFu action I pushed was for prospects to create a free account.

Leads

1,436 people created free accounts. This was big because I was able to push promotions to them.

Create BoFu Content

Bottom of the funnel content is anything that’s going to persuade a prospect to buy.

That’s when a sales page comes into play.

Here’s what I did:
  1. First, I identified transactional keywords related to my service.
  2. Secondly, I created a long-form sales page targeting “blogger outreach service” as my transactional phrase. This phrase gets around 150 searches per month.

Search Volume

Now before you roll your eyes at that search volume, you need to understand that all searches are not created equally.

If you were new to SEO, you would probably think it’s smarter to focus on “backlinks” (9,400 searches/mo) instead of “blogger outreach service” (150 searches/mo) because it gets over 6,000% more searches.

The truth is:

You should focus on keywords that have transactional intent because they drive direct sales.

They’re also easier to rank for.

Informational keywords are great for long-term sales, but they rarely drive direct sales. That’s because most people searching informational keywords are early in the buying cycle (“Awareness” stage).

buying cycle

You’ll need to spend time nurturing these people before they’re ready to buy.

That’s also why it’s critical to have a lead capture strategy. The best way to capture leads is to create a valuable lead magnet and then a high-converting squeeze page.

The other thing to consider is:

Search volume numbers aren’t always accurate.

Here are the organic search traffic numbers from my blogger outreach service page from October 2016 to February 2019:

Organic Search Traffic

That averages out to 935 pageviews per month. Or, 523% more organic search traffic than the search volume estimate of 150.

3. Emphasis the Key Benefit

Outsourcing your link building has several benefits, but the biggest is time savings. That’s why I emphasized how much goes into a proper link acquisition campaign:

Benefit

I wanted to show the prospect how much time and effort they would be saving by using our service.

4. Call Out Your Target Market

Who is the absolute best person to use your product or service? Once you’ve figured out, make it clear:

Ideal Customer Avatar

No product or service is for everyone. That’s why you need to spend an enormous amount of time thinking about your perfect customer. It’s time well spent.

5. Establish Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

How is your product or service different than your competitors?

I spent a ton of time analyzing the feedback from customers who purchased services from link vendors on Black Hat World.

Black Hat World

My goal was to see if there were common complaints or issues. That way I was creating a service based on real user feedback (instead of guessing).

Here are the common “problems” I tried to solve with my service:

Unique Selling Proposition

6. Do Anything to Get Social Proof

Don’t even try to sell a product online without social proof. It’s fundamental.

In fact:

It’s so important that I offered huge discounts for customers that wrote testimonials for my service.

Testimonials

Discount your product or give it away for free to acquire more testimonials.

Do whatever it takes to get them because they’ll have a huge impact on sales.

7. Price Intelligently

Pricing is a topic within itself, but I’ve learned a few things over the years.

1. First, identify what the “competitive” prices are for your product or service.

Then, in most cases, make yours more “expensive”.

Pricing

That means you’ll need to have some type advantage to demand higher prices. Sometimes that’s your brand’s equity. Other times it’s going to be additional features that are hard to replicate.

2. Secondly, use a price anchor.

A price anchor is a price-point that is substantially more expensive than the rest.

Price Anchor

As a result, your mid-to-lower packages seem more affordable.

One other micro tactic that I learned from Priceless is to remove the dollar sign.

Remove Dollar Sign

This could reduce buyer resistance even further.

8. Add Value on Your Sales Page

This might be the most odd tip of all, but you should try to educate on your sales page (if it makes sense).

Add Value

Not only does this increase your word count (which benefits SEO performance), but it can also act as a sales vehicle. You’re essentially giving results in advance on your sales page.

9. Be Liberal With CTAs

Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale. I had 15 calls to action on my sales page.

CTAs

Excessive? Maybe, but I would rather have too many, than too little.

10. Leverage Scarcity

People are way more motivated by the fear of loss than the possibility of gain. I leveraged this principle to drive sales in two ways.

First, I ran discount promotions about every quarter like this “Anniversary Sale” (from 5/14/2018 to 5/25/2018):

Sale

Secondly, I used Deadline Funnel to push first time visitors into action.

For example, if they visited my blogger outreach service page for the first time, they would see a special discount offer.

deadline funnel

This worked well because a lot of the traffic going to that page was from organic search and through my blog.

The later was more effective because I built rapport through my blog content and warmed them up.

11. Sell to Existing Customers

Ever heard the statistic that “it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep a current one”?

This needs to be permanently implanted into your mind.

Not only is it easier to sell to existing customers, but it’s more profitable (because you don’t have to spend money on advertising or invest time on nurturing them).

Probability of selling

For example, I offered a lifetime 20% discount on all our link building services to existing Gotch SEO Academy members.

Selling to existing customers

This discount code was used more than all the promotions I’ve ran throughout the years.

12. Don’t Do the Work

There’s no way I could have sold as much if I was doing the work.

bill gates lazy quote

You need to build systems and get help from other people. Identify what your core strength is (for me it’s SEO and marketing) and focus on that.

Everything else should be systemized and delegated.

What I Would Have Done Differently

Sometimes to have to walk away from a project to know what you would have done differently.

Want to know what I discovered after some reflection?

My marketing execution for these services was terrible!

That’s why I want to share two things I would have done differently if I were starting today (with what I know now)…

1. I Would Have Created a Lead Nurturing System

Taking the time to build out a lead nurturing process is so incredibly worth it.

lead nurturing

The truth is that ~97% of your websites visitors are NOT ready to buy. You need to take the time to nurture them, gain their trust, and then maybe (if you did things right), they’ll give you a shot. Don’t rush it.

2. I Would Have Used Video

None of my sales pages used video. This was a big mistake.

Here’s the truth:

I was still super insecure about being on video when I created these services.

I know for a fact that my insecurity hurt sales. That’s because I now know the positive impact video has on building relationships with your prospects and for driving sales.

Moral of the story? Don’t let self-imposed limitations and fear hurt your business.

Some Background & Questions

As of March 1, 2019, I no longer offer link building services. The post explains it all, but I needed my mind to be clear so I could focus 100% of my attention on Gotch SEO Academy.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m quite the scatter brain. Sometimes I jump from one idea to the next.

That’s why I have to train myself to focus because otherwise I won’t get anything done. I’ve also learned that the ability to consistently focus on high-impact actions is a huge factor in success.

That said, let me tackle some questions that I’m sure you have:

Is the $470,998 revenue or profit?

That’s total revenue. My profit margin on link building services was between 46-50%.

Was $470,998 the total you made?

No. It was much more because I originally sold my services using WuFoo forms before moving to Service Provider Pro. I also had several clients that paid monthly retainers for link building services outside of the SPP platform.

What did you sell?

My primary product was the blogger outreach service, but I sold some other supplementary services. Here’s a breakdown of the revenue by service:

Sales

Did you only sell link services?

From 2013 – 2016, I only sold full-service SEO. I stopped taking on new clients at the end of 2017. From 2017 – February 2019, I only sold link services and Gotch SEO Academy.

Now I only sell Gotch SEO Academy and my SEO audit template (which is being discontinued because it will only be available for members after April 30th).

Let me say this before I sign off…

I don’t consider myself a “good” salesperson. I just stand on the shoulders of giants by executing the principles I’ve learned from Influence, Frank Kern, Cashvertising and too many others to list.

There are link vendors that crush these numbers and that’s awesome.

My goal isn’t to have a d*ck measuring contest with everyone else.

My goal is to share my experiences with you because I hope it helps you avoid many of the mistakes I’ve made over the years.

In short:

All you can do is take action and iterate based on the feedback you receive.

Do that and your business will always get better.

P.S. If you enjoyed this please share it and leave a comment below. I’de love to hear what you think.



Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Facebook Introduces Cost Cap Bidding

Listen up Paid Social Advertising practitioners, we’ve got another industry update for you and your clients! In an effort to maximize cost efficiency while driving volume for your clients’ primary KPIs, Facebook is introducing a new bidding strategy called Cost Cap Bidding to select advertisers throughout the year.…

The post Facebook Introduces Cost Cap Bidding appeared first on Seer Interactive.



Friday, April 12, 2019

Bot Farms, Fraudulent Websites, and Display Advertising

The most profitable campaigns in digital marketing are not managed by advertisers, whether in-house, freelancer, or global agencies. Rather, the most profitable campaigns in digital marketing are managed by black hat hackers committing ad fraud.

In 2015, the Security Firm White Ops exposed Methbot, a suspected Russian criminal syndicate making an estimated $3-$5 million a day from display advertising fraud.

The post Bot Farms, Fraudulent Websites, and Display Advertising appeared first on Seer Interactive.



Friday, April 5, 2019

How to Create a Squeeze Page That Converts at 74.5% (Case Study)

What if your squeeze pages converted at 74.5%?

Good news.

It’s possible because I’ve done it myself and I’ll be showing you how I did it right now.

But, first:

What is a Squeeze Page?

A squeeze page is designed to achieve one objective: get a prospect’s name and email address.

I believe that every business should be using squeeze pages to capture leads.

Why?

Because building your email list and then nurturing your leads is the single best way to grow any business online.

It doesn’t matter whether you sell your own products or services or you’re an affiliate. Email marketing is king because you own your list.

This is unlike Instagram or Facebook because those platforms not only own your content, but they also own the accounts of the people that follow you.

Don’t ignore these platforms, but growing your email list should be a primary goal in your business.

The best way to make that a reality to start building effective squeeze pages.

Now you’re probably wondering:

What’s a Good Squeeze Page Conversion Rate?

The annoying answer is that it depends.

According to Unbounce:

unbouce“a 12% conversion rate is pretty good for lead generation landing pages. And by “pretty good,” we mean you’ll be better than about 90% of your competitors.”

They analyzed over 64,000 squeeze pages across multiple industries to come to this conclusion.

That means that a 12% conversion rate for your squeeze page is a solid benchmark and target.

Now the question is:

How did I create a squeeze page that converts at 74.5%?

I’ll show you a second, but first…

Here’s the proof:

Squeeze Page Conversion Rate

Don’t worry:

This isn’t a one-hit wonder.

Here’s another squeeze page that’s achieved insane conversion rates as well:

Squeeze Page Conversion Rate 2

The most unbelievable thing about these pages is that they’re incredibly simple.

Let me show you what I mean:

9 Qualities of High-Converting Squeeze Pages

There are many ways to structure squeeze pages and all kinds of tactics you can use.

The following 9 methods work for me and in my industry. They may not work as well in yours.

That’s why it’s critical that you test.

More on this in a second, but let’s start with the #1 quality of successful squeeze pages.

1. They’re Only Visible to the RIGHT People

The success or failure of your squeeze page will depend on the quality of your traffic and your relationship with that audience.

Here’s an interesting fact about my strategy:

I rarely target cold audiences with lead magnets.

Instead, I promote content assets (like this one) to build rapport and trust, THEN I promote lead magnets (within the body of the content and through retargeting ads).

That means my squeeze pages are only visible to people that are already warming up to my brand.

Here’s a visual:

Squeeze Page Strategy

The takeaway here is to warm people up to your brand with Top of the Funnel (ToFu) content and then push them to a squeeze page.

2. They Offer a Lead Magnet

Offering a lead magnet on your squeeze page substantially outperforms a boring newsletter page.

Just compare these two conversion rates:

Conversion Rates

The first is for my general newsletter page and the second is for a page promoting a lead magnet.

Notice the difference?

Let’s move onto strategy #3.

3. They Are Simple

I’ve tried every type of squeeze page templates and strategy under the sun. I can tell you with great conviction that nothing beats a simple, highly-focused squeeze page like this:

High Converting Squeeze Page

It’s funny because almost every business challenge I’ve encountered has been overcome by simplifying.

simple is better

I literally have the word “simplify” on a board in my office just to remind me.

This brings me to point #4…

4. They Use Benefit-Driven Headlines

This goes along with simplicity. You should only present one benefit that the prospect will receive if they subscribe.

In the example below, you’ll see that the “benefit” of signing up is that the prospect will get access to “untapped” link building techniques.

Squeeze Page Headline

I also emphasis that these are “new” tactics because everyone desires to be on the cutting edge of things.

To get an idea of the power of a few words, just take “untapped” and the “new” portion out of the headline.

You’ll be left with “7 Link Building Techniques”.

That’s not exciting. That doesn’t create interest or desire.

Choose your words wisely!

5. They Have Zero Distractions

Notice that this page has one clear objective and there’s nothing taking away from that.

I don’t have menus, my logo isn’t clickable, and there are no distractions.

Distraction Free

People are easily distracted and have limited attention spans. Don’t add anything to your squeeze that may distract from your primary objective (getting an email subscriber).

6. They Have Minimal Fields

Trust me… no one (including your most qualified prospects) enjoys:

  • A) wasting time filling in unnecessary fields
  • B) having to think about answers to your questions
  • C) sharing personal information with your company

Trying to extract as much information as you can from a squeeze page is stupid.

You will have so many other opportunities to learn more about your prospects once they’re on your list.

Here’s the key takeaway:

Let the prospect get what you’re offering without having to think. Having minimal fields is the key.

7. They Give Explicit Directions

Never assume that your prospects know what do. Tell them exactly what you want from them:

Direct Users

8. They Use Unique CTAs

“Subscribe” is boring and over-used. Think about how to be different or even abstract with your CTA copy.

I can’t explain it, but using word “Download” has always worked really well for me.

Squeeze Page CTA

One other big part of effective CTAs is creating color contrast. Notice that my button’s color isn’t competing with any other colors on the page.

It has great contrast relative to all other elements. Always try to create contrast with your buttons.

9. They Have Trust Signals

Every squeeze page should make a prospect feel comfortable giving you an email address. If the thought crosses their mind that “this is sketchy”, you’re done for.

Notice that squeeze page has three distinct trust signals.

1. Recognizable Logo

Who are you? That should be established right away.

Logo

If you followed tip #1, this is just icing on the cake because the prospect should already “know” who you are.

2. GDPR Compliance

Some Internet marketers were freaking out when GDPR went into effect. I viewed it the opposite way. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate to prospects that you’re trustworthy.

Data compliance

You know how you feel when you land a website with an SSL certificate? That’s how you’ll feel one day when a squeeze page doesn’t have privacy policy.

The cool part about having the prospect “consent” is that you’re getting two micro commitments in one.

3. “Official” Business Stuff

Adding a copyright notice and the official legal entity name of the business is another way to add trust.

Copyright

To see the power of adding a few easy trust signals, take a look at these two examples:

squeeze page trust signals

The example on the left is the original squeeze page. The one on the right is what it looks like without any trust signals. Much more sketchy!

Now that you know the characteristics of high-converting squeeze pages, how do you actually create one?

How to Create Squeeze Pages

There are two ways to create a squeeze page:

1. Hire a Web Designer and Developer

This is the most expensive option, but it’s the best option if A) you’re not technically savvy B) don’t want to mess around with page builders or C) don’t have the time to create these pages.

2. Use a Squeeze Page Builder

Page builders are perfect if you don’t want to or don’t have the ability to custom code pages. They’re also great if you don’t have the budget to hire a designer and developer.

Squeeze Page Builder

I personal used Leadpages to create the squeeze page I’ve been talking about in this guide.

That’s All!

I hope this helped learn how to create high-converting squeeze pages.

If you liked it, please share this guide with a friend who’s trying to master digital marketing.

Thanks for reading!